When news of Hunter Biden’s laptop broke in 2020, it was initially dismissed as Russian disinformation, but has now been presented in court as formal, legal evidence in Hunter’s federal gun crimes trial.
Here are five of the most shocking cases where laptops have been found illegal.
Politico reports letter from intelligence officials alleging laptop is Russian disinformation
Shortly after the New York Post published its story about Hunter Biden on October 14, 2020, media outlets were quick to suggest that the laptop in question was part of a complex Russian operation to influence the US presidential election.
The media reports were sparked in part by an open letter written by 51 former intelligence officials, who claimed the laptop “bears all the classic hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation.”
Flashback: MSNBC, CNN, CBS tell viewers Hunter Biden laptop story was Russian disinformation
The letter First reported The Politico article was headlined “Hunter Biden Story is Russian Disinformation, Dozens of Ex-Intelligence Officials Say,” and U.S. intelligence officials suggested that the emails stored on the laptop may have been hacked and altered by the Kremlin to incriminate Hunter Biden.
The New York Times and Washington Post ultimately verified Hunter Biden’s laptop after major tech companies denied the New York Post’s explosive reporting during the 2020 presidential election. The Post’s reporting was famously censored by Twitter ahead of the 2020 election. (Getty Images | New York Post)
Signatories included former director of national intelligence and CNN analyst James Clapper, former CIA director and MSNBC analyst John Brennan, and former CIA chief of staff and MSNBC analyst Jeremy Bash. Clapper later distanced himself from the letter.
Politico and the former intelligence officials who signed the letter are facing renewed scrutiny after the laptop was introduced into evidence this week and validated by the FBI as part of Hunter’s federal gun crimes trial.
Asked for comment, Politico stressed that its articles made clear that the allegations of potential Russian interference were those of former intelligence officials, and not the publication’s own.
Twitter uses Big Tech power to block Hunter Biden reporting, punish New York Post
When the New York Post’s explosive report was first published just weeks before the 2020 election, Twitter showed unprecedented coordination in quickly restricting or blocking sharing of the story. Even Twitter’s former CEO, Jack Dorsey, acknowledged that the social media platform was wrong to intervene in the Hunter Biden story.
Twitter, which was renamed X after being bought by Elon Musk a few years later, took unprecedented steps to block the sharing of the Washington Post article, claiming it emerged from “hacked materials,” which was false.
The tech giant banned The Post from tweeting the article or sharing it privately in direct messages. Twitter locked The Post’s account, telling it it could only unlock it if it removed the tweets promoting the story. The Post refused, and eventually regained access to its account.
Vijaya Gadde, who was fired after Elon Musk bought Twitter, told a congressional committee in February 2023 that he ultimately approved the decision to block The Washington Post’s reporting on Hunter’s laptop and its contents, but that the move should have been reversed sooner.
’60 Minutes’ claims laptop not visible during Trump interview
In one of the most memorable media conversations on the subject, shortly after the thread was published, Trump appeared on CBS’s “60 Minutes” and called the laptop “one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever seen,” though interviewer Lesley Stahl insisted there was no way to conclude that the laptop or its contents were authentic.
CNN won’t give airtime to NYPost’s Hunter Biden report, skips Amy Coney Barrett hearings
“Excuse me, we found the laptop. Leslie, listen,” Trump said, while Staal repeatedly interjected that he could not find the laptop.
“What can’t be verified?” Trump asked.
Veteran CBS News correspondent Lesley Stahl famously said during a “60 Minutes” interview with then-President Trump that Hunter Biden’s laptop could not be reviewed. (Screenshot/CBS News)
“A laptop!” Staal yelled.
“Why would you say that?” Trump replied, before insisting the laptop was real.
Staal also criticised Trump for suggesting Hunter was embroiled in a “scandal”.
Stahl’s employer, CBS News, confirmed the authenticity of the laptop and its contents through its own forensic analysis in 2022. The certification led many of Trump’s supporters to condemn Stahl, and the Hunter Biden trial has reignited criticism of the veteran journalist.
NPR called the laptop story a “distraction” and said it didn’t want to “waste” readers’ time.
On the morning of the second presidential debate between then-candidate Joe Biden and President Trump, NPR, which had previously ignored the scandal surrounding Hunter’s laptop, published a quote explaining its editorial standards.
“We don’t want to waste our listeners’ and readers’ time on news that isn’t really news, and we don’t want to waste our listeners’ and readers’ time on news that is just a distraction. And, frankly, we ultimately decided that this was a politically driven event and we’re going to treat it as such,” NPR editor in chief Terrence Samuel said.
NPR released a statement in 2020 saying the Hunter Biden laptop story was untrue and that they weren’t going to waste any time on it. (Screenshot/NPRPublicEditor/Twitter, Brooks Kraft LLC/Corbis via Getty Images)
Video of Democrats and media personnel questioning Hunter Biden’s laptop goes viral
The comments were made in response to an NPR radio listener who couldn’t understand why the story was being ignored.
NPR later suggested the laptop had been “discredited by independent investigations by U.S. intelligence and media organizations.”
Joe Biden destroys son’s laptop during Trump debate
During the final 2020 presidential debate, Biden told Trump that the laptop was a “piece of garbage that nobody believes in.”
“I have 50 former national intelligence officials who have said that the people he’s accusing me of are Russian agents,” Biden said of the laptop at the time.
His comments received no rebuttal from the debate moderator.
White House had been warned before Before the laptop was obtained, U.S. intelligence had warned them that Rudy Giuliani, then President Trump’s personal lawyer, was under investigation by Russian intelligence for providing false information to the president. Giuliani had possession of the laptop’s hard drive before it was turned over to the New York Post.
Then-President Donald Trump and then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden participated in the final debate of the 2020 US presidential election at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA, on October 22, 2020.
Biden’s then-advisers Kate Bedingfield, Andrew Bates and Neera Tanden also made claims of Russian disinformation based on letters from intelligence officials.
“Dozens of former intelligence officials say the Hunter Biden story is Russian disinformation,” future White House press secretary Jen Psaki wrote in October 2020, and was retweeted by Susan Rice, now chair of the Domestic Policy Council.
Since President Biden was inaugurated, multiple news outlets have provided some validation of the laptop’s legitimacy, including CNN, MSNBC, NBC News, CBS News, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Politico and NPR.
Fox News has reached out to Twitter, Facebook, 60 Minutes and NPR for comment.
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Fox News’ Joseph A. Wolfson, Brian Flood, Gabriel Hayes and Hannah Panrec contributed to this report.
